Digital Transformation Sets the Agenda on Day Two of IDC's Middle East CIO Summit in Abu Dhabi

18 Feb 2016

Dubai – More than 250 of the region's most influential technology and business leaders gathered at Abu Dhabi's Jumeirah Etihad Towers for the second and final day of IDC's Middle East CIO Summit 2016. Hosted under the patronage of His Excellency Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, the UAE's Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, the ninth annual installment of the popular ICT conference saw discussions continue on the wave of digital transformation that is sweeping across the region and the unrivalled opportunities that exist for driving innovation and value creation in this new digital economy.

"The profound challenge of digital transformation is the ability to infuse innovation into every sinew of the enterprise or community in question," said Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC's group vice president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. "Collaboration is the key here, because inputs are required from all relevant stakeholders in order for digital transformation efforts to be truly successful. This ultimately requires the establishment of cross-functional partnerships, the integration of new technology platforms into stable, scaled, and business services, and the incorporation of new skills, techniques, and cultures into the existing fabric of the broader organization."

These challenges remained the focus of attention as Gerry Pennell, CIO of the London Olympic Organising Committee, took to the stage. Drawing on lessons learned from the £500m technology program he managed for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, he outlined a series of strategies for overcoming the numerous barriers that exist to delivering major IT and digital initiatives at speed.

The delegates also heard from Qusai Al-Shatti, acting director general of Kuwait’s Central Agency for Information Technology, who outlined a National ICT Development Partnership that the agency has formed with IDC to gauge ICT adoption rates in the country. He explained that the initiative will draw on 28,000 surveys to detail the latest technology usage trends among government entities, individuals and households, private enterprises, education institutes, ICT vendors, and infrastructure and access providers such as telecom operators and ISPs.

“Our partnership with IDC is not only aimed at raising awareness about the state of Kuwait’s ICT sector, but also at benchmarking the country’s development on both a regional and international scale,” said Al-Shatti. “The data will be shared with reputed global agencies such as ITU and the World Economic Forum for use in their public reports, and we expect the research findings to fuel extensive discussions between relevant policymakers and stakeholders on the establishment of coherent national strategies for improving the maturity of ICT adoption within Kuwait.”

Following a brief pause in proceedings, Dr. Arwa Y. Al-Aama, vice mayor for IT affairs at Jeddah Municipality, chaired a panel discussion on the growing role of women leaders in IT. Featuring Najwa A. Rahim, vice president of ICT at Bahrain Airport Company; Alexandra Tarazi, executive director of health information systems and ICT at Primary Health Care Corporation; and Ameena Abdul Raheem, head of IT at the Engineers Office, the panelists discussed the benefits of actively encouraging more women to seek and retain leadership roles within the region's IT organizations.

For more information about IDC's Middle East CIO Summit 2016, please contact Ms. Ronita Bhattacharjee, associate vice president for conferences at IDC Middle East and Africa, on +971 4 391 2747 or at rbhattacharjee@idc.com. You can also tweet about the summit using the hashtag #IDCMECIO or visit the dedicated event website www.idcmesummit2016.com.

IDC has teamed up with a host of leading ICT vendors for the Middle East CIO Summit 2016, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intel, Dell, and DarkMatter as Summit Partners; Netscout Systems as Platinum Partner; EMC as CFO Partner; Sanovi, Brocade, Juniper, MDS Computers, and FireEye as Gold Partners; MISYS and Automic as Banking and Finance Vertical Partners; OpenText, Fortinet, SAP, and Veeam Software as Government Vertical Partners; Tata Communications, Vision Solutions, VMware, and iDashboards as Lunch Partners; AGC as Dinner Partner; and Cloud 4C, Alcatel-Lucent, Tuqnia, and CA Technologies as Exhibit Partners. ITP, Capital Business, and Executive Women are the event's official Media Partners for 2016.